My younger sister was the last of her friends to have children. Meanwhile none of my friends had kids. I thought I just had the types of friends that didn't have kids, but the spell has been broken, and now most of my friends have kids.

Here's a little post to show some of them. Missing from this edition of recently-seen-babies is Theo of Derrick & Shana.

Aria's parents (she's hiding up there in the swaddling).

Me 'n' Aria

Missy and Flex now have 3 yr old Cole and 6 month old twins Isaac and Ella. Here's 5 seconds of chaos at their house. Missy is an incredible mother, cleaning up behind everyone, preemptively feeding everyone, and maintaining a cheery, encouraging disposition.

Cyprus with his dad Joe and mama Mira.

Libby Lee motor boats my mouth then hers.

And the inevitable question is, Do I want kids now? Still the answer is not really. I enjoy meeting these new little people, and it's really cool to see their parents transform into parenthood. I can see and have confirmed through discussion that having children is often one of the most fulfilling aspects of their lives. I also see that it's not all roses, and I commend parents for the trials and tribulations they endure daily. But to exemplify how I feel personally about having kids, I'll let this photo do the speaking:

And of course the baby I'm most excited about...Baby Kitty. I can't help myself!

I have, of course, been searching for jobs. I've had 2 interviews where I was in the final rounds, but no dice. Still, thinking about those situations as great opportunities to practice interviewing. I'm taking it as a good sign that I've had 2 real interviews less than a month after graduating. I'm also working 15 hrs/week at Seafood Watch, still.

In the meantime, I've been trying to enjoy myself as much as possible. All these projects I've had in my mind for ever--I have the time to make them come to fruition! For instance, this model for my pendants and earrings which I wanted on wood, but never found a properly large piece of drift wood to make that come true. Instead, I utilized my photoshop skills, melding a photo of worn wood that I took with the silhouette photo, mounting it on foamboard and cutting it out.

Ben and I have been enjoying more time to explore TOGETHER. Here are some shots from Asilomar one day. Super low tide= lots of crabs.

Once a week, I've been going up to San Francisco for a dance class, and I have enjoyed other things like loft parties with hipster bands and characters dancing around.

People named Pinky playing something that looks like a cross between a fiddle and a gramaphone.

If I go up early (which I've learned to do to avoid hitting crazy traffic), I spend the day with Dusty or Mira or Rose, working on costuming/choreography. It's great to immerse myself in that creative part of my life with others who are of the same ilk.

Dusty's dress patterns hanging all organized-like.

My friend Colleen turned 30, and I helped celebrate, doing her makeup like mine (I had just finished round two of photoshoots with Thatcher).

June 19, 2012

A couple weeks ago, I went to the overwhelmingly awesome Alameda Antique & Flea Market with my friend Mira. We picked up a few things. That shiny thing in the middle was my favorite object: an art deco chrome bread box. My idea: turn it into a home for all my electronics that need to be plugged in. You can see what a mess it is to have camera, batteries, phone, dongles, ipad all in a wreck on the counter:

So I got right to it. Firstly, I used some steel wool to rub out the spots of rust on the outside.

I was afraid that the steel wool would scratch the chrome, but it actually did really well. Here is the exact same spot on the breadbox as the picture above.

Then I had to make a hole in the back for the plug of the powerstrip to go through. This was the toughest part. I bought a special 1 1/2" drill bit, but couldn't get it to stay in one place, so I ended up tracing the drill bit and going around the circle with a tiny drill bit, one hole at a time.

At this point I hoped the large drill bit would have something for the teeth to grab on to, but it didn't. So I just continued making holes.

I couldn't get the holes quite close enough to run into one another, so I ended up snipping the metal between them with a wire cutter.

Once I got it started, I was able to use a pair of needle nose pliers to pull the circle away from the breadbox.

Then there was a super jagged edge which is less than ideal for electronics. Unfortunately the file didn't really work.

So instead I just taped the bejeezus out of it with electrical tape.

(Cat interlude. Parsnip found the hole irresistible)

Okay, next step. So it looked like this inside to begin with. I wanted it to look as nice inside as it does outside, so I added some corduroy to the horizontal surfaces with hot glue. It peels off easily if I ever want to change it out, but sticks well enough to be semi-permanent.

And for the final touch I used these very cool twisty ties to keep all the cords tidy.